Trends (2012): Family Roleplay

In celebration of Adult Empire’s 20th anniversary, we look at some of the porn trends and genres that shaped the company’s history. In this edition: FAMILY ROLEPLAY.

It feels so wrong. Yet for porn, it’s the one genre that always seems to go right.

Family-relationship porn, sometimes also referred to as “fauxcest,” has become a consistent bestseller in adult entertainment over the past few years. “Producers of adult movies are among the greatest mavericks of society,” Girlfriends Films‘ Dan O’Connell told VICE in 2015. “It is their nature to leave the realm of conventional sex and depict the very outer edges of sexual behavior.” Sex between family members, even when it’s softened a bit by making it a “step” relationship, definitely lands in that area! As with many other porn genres, the “forbidden” aspect is a huge part of its appeal.

The grandaddy of them all — or perhaps we should say “grandmommy” — is Taboo, a notorious movie from 1980 that centered on an inappropriate relationship between a mother and son. In contrast with newer titles with similar themes, this movie presented an actual relationship among blood relatives, at least within the context of the movie’s plot. (The actors themselves were not related.) Most modern family roleplay porn movies make it abundantly clear that the characters in the movies are simply “step” relatives only. (For example, this message plays in front of many of Digital Sin‘s family roleplay movies: “This film is a fantasy just like all of our movies – it isn’t reality. It is certainly not advocating that the viewers re-enact anything depicted The real life performers aren’t related as steps or otherwise.”)

Jodi West, one of the current queens of family roleplay, says the increase in family roleplay porn can be explained by the prevalence of mixed families. Many of her movies’ scenarios were inspired by actual stories she heard from friends whose step-relationships took a shocking turn. In the end, though, family roleplay movies are intended as pure fantasy that allows latitude for the viewer to insert himself/herself into the scenario. “It’s to the mind of the viewer,” West told Adult Empire. “It can be anybody – it can be the woman down the street. We rarely mention who the person is supposed to be in the movie, because it’s like reading a book . . . you fill in your own pictures of how things are going to be. In this situation you fill in who the characters actually are and who they represent.”